In my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,214 I have disclosed and claimed an apparatus of this type wherein the overspray, i.e. the excess of coating material bypassing the workpieces, is intercepted by a moving screen with a substantially vertical front surface facing the spray-emitting nozzle or nozzles. This moving screen, designed as a rotating disk or as an endless band led about a pair of vertically separated deflecting rollers, coacts with a stationary wiper continuously scraping a film of the overspray from that front surface and directing it into an underlying receptacle.
While these prior devices operate generally satisfactorily, the continuous displacement of such an overspray-intercepting screen requires--especially in larger installations--a rather powerful drive motor consuming considerable energy.